Thirteen
by paramoria
Summary: My name is Beca Mitchell. I am 24 years old. My home is District 13. I am a part of the Rebellion. I am in love with Chloe Beale.


I believe it's been two months since I've arrived in District 13, but I can't be entirely sure. The days all seem to run together. There isn't a sun rise or sun set. There are no windows to look out of. There are only white walls with white floors.

I wish my schedule was more flexible, but I'm still labeled as 'unstable' because of my therapy. Once I finish that, I'll be able to move out of the medical ward and get my own room and walk around. I'm able to explore the District now, actually, but there's rarely any time to. With physical therapy three days a week, and two separate therapies the other four days, I'm too exhausted to do much of anything.

It's not the physical stuff that gets me; it's the emotional and mental aspects of my therapy. It's learning what really happened while I was asleep and coping with reality. It's learning how the world has gone to shit and how I'm going to have to help fix it.

It's remembering that nothing I did with Chloe was real, but she's the same person I fell in love with.

It's simply facing reality, my reality.

I had to learn how to walk again. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I've ever had to do. Learning to walk is for toddlers, babies. I'm twenty-four. I shouldn't be stumbling around like I have legs made of gelatin, but I did for a few weeks. Starting slow in physical therapy, I hoped I could re-learn quickly, but I was solely mistaken. Apparently being in a bed for seven years can take a toll on your body. Who knew.

The doctor, one of my therapists, has to teach me about the Games I missed, including the one I was supposed to be in, and the rebellion. I feel bad for the guy honestly because all I do is stare at him while he explains in great detail how all these children have died, and I usually zone out due to his monotone voice. He's just so boring, but I really should listen. The Games up until the 74th are unimportant to the rebellion cause, or at least that's what I've heard. I'm currently learning about the 72nd Games right now.

My other therapist, Miss Mable, is responsible for helping me understand why it's important for me to learn about all this, and to help me cope with it. Her sessions are the day after mine with the Games therapist. That's what I call him; I don't care about him enough to learn his name. Miss Mable tries to understand where I stand and how I see things. She's particularly interested in my brain and the Games that went on in my mind. I asked her once if we could watch the 68th Games, but she said the other therapist has to give her the okay before I am permitted to see them. According to him, I must be stable before I can watch them; they might trigger unwanted feelings. I don't really care. I just want to know the truth. I want to see it with my own eyes.

If I'm not eating or in therapy, I'm usually resting or sleeping in the medical ward. Sometimes I watch Chloe work. Okay, most of the time I watch Chloe work. I'm secretly glad I am being forced to stay here, but at the same time I'm not. I get to see Chloe all day, which is the only real bonus to being here, but I want to get my own room with my own shower. I want sweet silence. The whole patients-moaning-in-pain thing is getting really old really fast. I understand these people are actually sick, unlike me, and are physically in pain, also unlike me, but they have more than enough morphling to keep them from feeling anything. Or at least they should have enough.

I've seen shadows in the dark moving around in here. It's usually at night when the nurses are gone and the only light source is the blinking lights of monitors. It came to the bed next to mine one night. The soft glow of the steady green light on the patient's monitor lightly lit up the shadow's face. It was a girl, but that's all I could determine before she disappeared.

Besides the person who sneaks around at night, I rarely get visitors, and if I do get one, it's just Haymitch. I shouldn't say it's _just_ Haymitch because he's actually not as bad as he puts off, and he's one of the few who believe I'm normal. He has access to my personal files so he knows everything that happens in my therapies. Sometimes I ask him questions about what I've discussed with my doctors and he helps me understand. My sessions are long and tedious; I can never remember everything I was told.

Haymitch keeps me connected with the outside world. He reminds me I'm not alone here. He reminds me there's a big world out there in need of saving. He reminds me there are others like me, hidden away in the Capitol, begging to be saved, to be set free. He also warned me once I was considered stable, I would meet President Coin. Apparently she's been eager to make my acquaintance. I can't say I feel the same. I've never been one to get along with authority, but if Coin is against President Snow, she deserves to be given a chance.

Everyone deserves to be given a chance. Even me.

* * *

Sitting on my bed watching Chloe work from across the room, I notice something move out of the corner of my eye. Peeling my eyes off Chloe, I find myself catching a small but built woman with super short hair messing with the medicine by my unused monitor. I lean back a bit so I can watch what she's doing. After a solid, long minute, she smirks at me, knowing I've been watching her. She just keeps on messing with the tube which is connected to the small bit of morphling they supply me with. "What are you doing?"

"Just taking some of your morphling. You don't need it," she shrugs, sticking a needle into her arm and sitting down next to me on my bed while the morphling enters her bloodstream. A small, delighted sigh escapes her lips as she leans back, resting on her unstuck arm, and relaxes. My attention goes back to Chloe as she continues feeding a patient across the room. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the girl with short hair next to me watching the people walk about the room. The silence between us isn't necessarily awkward, but it's not completely comfortable.

"Can I ask you a question?" I ask, not bothering to look over at her. She doesn't look at me either.

"Fire away."

"Do you happen to come here at night when everyone's asleep and take people's morphling?" I hear a soft laugh.

"Perhaps."

"Why?" I clarify, "Why do you do it?"

"Doctors are trying to wean me off of the stuff." She shrugs.

"So you just keep taking it? Does it really feel that good?" I turn my eyes away from Chloe to look the girl in the face for the first time. A small smirk is on her thin lips. Her sculpted eyebrows are the same color as her short hair that seems to be in the early stages of developing spikes.

"It numbs," she shrugs, leaving it at that. It doesn't need explaining.

I let my eyes rest yet again on Chloe until the girl next to me speaks up after a few minutes of silence. "Wait. You're Beca Mitchell, aren't you? Yeah, you are. That's why you keep staring at that nurse." She leans forward so she's sitting up straight. "I've read your file."

"Wh—You read my file?" My head snaps back to her. "How?"

"Victors can get away with pretty much anything," she smirks. "What do you see in her anyways?" she nods her head towards Chloe.

My eyes settle on the redhead, and I feel myself smile as I think of what to say. "She's the most kind person I've ever met. She's everything I wish I could be."

"I guess you could call her kind," the girl says apprehensively. "She wasn't always. I mean, I was just a kid when I watched her Games, but I remember how she won." She eyes me and smirks. "You haven't studied your Games fully yet, have you?"

"No."

"Spoiler alert: she slits the blonde's throat in her sleep."

"She what?"

"Yep. Not what you were expecting, hmm?" she chuckles. "You should do your research next time."

Her eyes look past me and I turn my head to follow her gaze. We watch a tall, built man with brown hair walk over to Chloe and give her a handful of flowers. Chloe looks happy to see him and hugs him, taking the flowers and inhaling their sweet scent. She sets the bouquet down on a table then makes animate conversation with the man.

"Who's he?" I expect the girl doesn't know, mostly because she probably doesn't care, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

"Gale Hawthorne."

"Where are the flowers from?" The girl gives me a look that shows she's questioning my intelligence, but I ignore it.

"The surface. He goes up there with Katniss all the time to hunt or something like that. Don't really care."

I look back at Gale who's laughing at one of Chloe's jokes. He looks too young to be a Victor from before my Games. "Which year did he win?"

"Oh, he wasn't in any Games. He's from 12."

"12?" Then I remember what Haymitch told me; 12 was destroyed by the Capitol.

"Mhm," she hums. Getting sick of seeing the exchange between Gale and Chloe, I study the girl sitting next to me's face. She said she was a Victor, but I don't recognize her. She must be younger than me too. Sometimes it's hard to remember that I'm twenty-four and not seventeen.

"Which Games did you win?"

"I wondered when you were gonna ask," she smirks. "The 69th." She pauses, I suspect waiting to see if I can remember her name, but I can't seem to. "Johanna Mason."

"Nice to meet you, Johanna."

"Sure," she says sarcastically.

"No, it is, actually. I don't get a chance to talk to many people. Half of the officials here think I'm 'unstable'" I use air quotes when I say 'unstable.'

"You could never be less stable than me, let me just tell you that," Johanna chuckles. She glances over at the Morphling container and notices it's empty. She takes out the needle and puts everything back in order. I watch her as she works slowly. It's like she doesn't care if she gets caught.

Turning to me, she says, "Well, Beca, I'm going to go. I'll see you around, I guess."

"See ya Johanna," I say after her, but she's already gone by the time her name leaves my lips. I glance over at Chloe and Gale to find them hugging. I roll my eyes and lie down on my bed, sighing as my body relaxes. I wish my mind would follow my body, but I can't stop thinking about Chloe and Gale and if they're lovers or friends or both. I want to know more about this Gale character. Who is he? What does he do here? Why is he talking to Chloe? Does Chloe like him? Does he like her? Do they want to date? Are they already dating?

I feel like a hormone-enraged teenager.


End file.
